'One Piece' Takes Step Closer To Beating 'Batman' Sales Record

One Piece is the series that cannot be stopped. After more than twenty years in print, the iconic series has amassed millions of readers, and it looks like Monkey D. Luffy is getting ready to square up for his biggest fight yet.

So, forget Blackbeard! Who needs Marshall Teach when you have Bruce Wayne ready to knock down your door?

Recently, a new report went live from Japan detailing the latest sales figures for One Piece. It turns out the on-going title has put out a whopping 450 million copies worldwide, and that total puts it in direct competition with Batman.

To break things down, One Piece has sold about 380 million copies in Japan with 70 million more being sold abroad. This 450 million competes with DC Comics’ iconic series as Batman has sold 474 million single-issues to date. The superhero title has amassed more than 16,000 issues since its debut in 1939, and One Piece has under 1,000 chapters since its 1997 premiere.

Right now, the only thing standing in between Luffy and Batman is a few million copies, so fans of One Piece are hoping the manga can bridge the gap. The shonen title is already the best-selling manga ever created, but it would be something else if the Straw Hats could take down Batman. The series may not be close to toppling the 600 million sales record set by Superman, but One Piece took down Spider-Man and X-Men awhile back. So, here’s to hoping Luffy can toughen up his Haki enough to take down the Batmobile if need be this year.

So, do you think Luffy can take down Gotham's Knight? Let me know in the comments or hit me up on Twitter @MeganPetersCB to talk all things comics and anime!

Eiichiro Oda's One Piece first began serialization in Shueisha's Weekly Shonen Jump in 1997. It has since been collected into over 80 volumes, and has been a critical and commercial success worldwide with many of the volumes breaking printing records in Japan. The manga has even set a Guinness World Record for the most copies published for the same comic book by a single author, and is the best-selling manga series worldwide with over 430 million copies sold. The series still ranked number one in manga sales in 2018, which surprised fans of major new entries.